Eat your broccoli!

An article from Naturalnews.com states, "Regardless of the FDA's strongly biased opinions, the fact remains that foods and superfoods do cure cancer. Broccoli reverses breast cancer. Carrots help reverse lung cancer. Ginger, onions and garlic shrink tumors throughout the body. These foods are healing foods, and they do in fact reverse serious disease. I've often said that if broccoli could be sold as a precription drug, it would be headline news. That's because it offers a vast array of cancer-fighting compounds, including antiangiogenesis phytochemicals that help "starve" tumors so they die, all without harming healthy cells."
This as well as other evidence is enough proof, for me at least, to believe in the cancer-fighting components in broccoli and other vegetables. I do remember a few years back when broccoli consumption was advised against. This i think was because broccoli that has been sprayed with pesticides is really loaded with them, since it gets into all the nooks and crannies and is hard to wash out.

Isothiocyanates in broccoli have been repeatedly, and for years, proven to reduce the risk of many types of cancers. If any reliable source told me that hanging upside-down with carrots in my ears while singing the sound of music backwards in swahili would cure my cancer, you better believe I would force myself to be bothered to try. So why not eat your broccoli? Anything is worth a shot. ANd if you don't like the taste of broccoli, put some velveeta on it.

chicken or egg?

The article's assumption that it was in fact the egg that came before the chicken, seems to make sense to me on some level. The idea still puzzles me as it does for all species. Maybe it was the chicken, though, and they didn't used to be hatched from eggs. Maybe they developed that over time and they originally were born without an egg.

Is there a drug around for just about everything?

It seems like there is. Unfortunately, the drugs only mask the underlying cause of the disease by treating the symptoms. In addition to this, many people have to take a whole slew of other drugs to counteracts the gnarly side effects of the initial drug. Most drugs don't even work as effectively as they should (prozac only has a 40% success rate), and lots of other drugs seem to work well on some people and not on others.

Can we raise our levels of dopamine ourselves?

I believe that our hormones are largely influenced by the way in which we lead our lives. If we live with a significant amount of stress, our bodies are constantly releasing cortisol, which in the long-term has a very deteriorating effect on our immune system. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter of the Biogenic Amine group and more specifically a catecholamine, derived from the amino acid tyrosine. Perhaps if we can get more tyrosene in the body, we can produce more dopamine??
Also, dopamine is degraded by certain enzymes with really long names, so maybe if you can eliminate having too much of those enzyme in the body, you can increase your dopamine levels? i don't really know.
How do you think chimps and humans diverged as species?

I think our species must have split millions of years ago and was probably some in between species before becoming the homo sapiens. Honestly i can't exactly know how it happened!

Pros, Eus, Viruses

I really enjoyed reading the "if you were bacteria" in class and again on the website. It was a funny way to learn about bacteria. I did not study the site as well as i would have needed to in order to do really well on the quiz, but I did ok. I got a few of the answers correct!

are humans just hairless chimps?

I have always been fascinated with our closest relative, and it always seemed uncanny how much their faces look like ours. Even their mannerisms, the grooming of one another, the mutual affection, seem so similar to ours. So it was no surprise to find out that we share 99.4% the same DNA coding as them. Chimpanzees are further separated into two types: Pan troglodytes, the common chimp, and Pan paniscus, the bonobo. Bonobos are so similar to us that it would be a ridiculous assertion to suggest that we did not directly descend from them. They are the only non-human animal to have been observed engaging in "human" sexual activities, such as oral sex, tongue kissing and even homosexual activity. These activities differentiate them from other primates, who only have sex for the purpose of procreation. The chimps do not form permanent relationships with single partners but are rather non-monogamous as a species. the bonobos are also observed to exist as a matriarchal society, with strong female bonding allowing them to rule their communities. Sounds like us!

ok so i finally read the articles from week one and now with the ones from last week i can write something. i was seriously disturbed and perturbed by the articles that discussed the imminent simulation of a human brain. Honestly I can not fathom the idea that one could clone a human brain, first because i do not believe it to be possible, and second because i feel that what makes us human is an energy that i do not believe can be translated from human to computer. We are natural, made of earthly materials that have been traveling about the universe for millenia. And here we are, we all-mighty humans, thinking we are so wonderful that we should be able to mess with everything! Ahh!

ok well, on another note, maybe it would help with researching the complex inner-workings of the mind. i dont know.